of their power to depose Kings, and to absolve subjects from their allegiance. It includes an assent to the propositions that heretics are to be persecuted; *that faith is not to be kept with them; that simulation is lawful, and that the guilt of homicide is not incurred by killing excommunicated persons, if zeal for religion be the motive. For these principles have been laid down in the Canons, or proclaimed by Councils; and upon these principles the Papal Church has acted,.... so far in strict conformity to its own creed. In my heart, Sir, I believe that you heartily disavow them, and that the great body of the British Romanists are sincere in disclaiming such intolerable opinions. they are distinctly asserted in your Canons and by your Councils; and they are comprehended in this Creed which you yourself present as

* See note, p. 25.

But

+ Simulatio utilis est, et in tempore assumenda. (Dec. Pars 2. Caus. 22. Quest. 2. ff. 285.) A truly curious passage occurs in the Decretals under this text: ipse Dominus noster, non habens peccatum, nec carnem peccati, simulationem peccatricis carnis assumpsit: which the marginal gloss expounds thus: simulationem, ut falleret Diabolum,...dicit enim auctoritas, si Diabolus eum Filium Dei scivisset, nunquam eum a Judæis crucifigi passus fuisset. St. Augustine is the Auctoritas.

‡ Non sunt homicidæ qui adversus excommunicatos zelo matris Ecclesie armantur. Dec. p. 2. Caus. 23. Quest. 5. ff. 306.

"an accurate and explicit summary of the Roman Catholic faith," to be received "without restriction or qualification." It is impossible, Sir, that you, and the body for which you speak, can assent to all that this creed includes; your feelings, your opinions, your solemn protestations are in opposition to it. But in rendering to you and to them this willing justice, I must add that there are some among you whose temper and whose doctrines are in perfect accord with these principles. There are men among you upon whom the mantles of Gardiner and Bonner have descended; who equivocate like Jesuits,... and who would persecute like Dominicans, if the power were in their hands. And these are the consistent Romanists,... Romanists in heart and soul as well as profession, who assent to all that the thirteen additional articles of their creed comprehend, and would joyfully act up to the very letter of their law. But for yourself, Sir, and those who with you renounce in full sincerity these abominable tenets, and who are therefore reduced to the uncomfortable necessity of denying in your public declarations what you profess and swear to in your Confession of Faith, this

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religious grievance must surely be more painful than the political disabilities which those tenets have rendered necessary for our safety. Is it unreasonable to suggest then that the British Roman Catholics might with more propriety apply for relief to the Court of Rome than to the British Parliament; and that instead of agitating these kingdoms with their demands: for political power, they would do well to petition the Head of their Church for a revision of the Creed of Pope Pius IV.?...for a removal of the restrictions which it imposes upon their understanding, their loyalty, and their conscience?..for emancipation from the moral and intellectual bondage in which it holds them?

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CREED OF POPE PIUS IV.

Now, Sir, for the rule which you suggest

THAT NO DOCTRINE SHOULD BE ASCRIBED TO THE ROMAN CATHOLICS AS A BODY, EXCEPT SUCH AS IS AN ARTICLE OF THEIR FAITH.

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Among the many misconceptions of their tenets," you say, "of which the Roman Catholics have to complain, they feel none more than those which proceed from a want of the obser

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vance of this rule. It is most true that the Roman Catholics believe the doctrines of their Church to be unchangeable; and that it is a tenet of their creed, that what their faith ever has been, such it was from the beginning, such it now is, and such it ever will be. But this proposition they confine to the articles of their faith; and they consider no doctrine to be of faith, unless it have been delivered by divine revelation, and propounded by the Roman Catholic Church as a revealed article of faith." You wish their adversaries to inquire, when they find in any Catholic writer a position which they think reprehensible, whether it be an article of Catholic faith, or the opinion of the individual writer; in the latter case you observe, that the general body of the Catholics is not responsible for it; in the former you require it to be carefully examined, whether it be the principle itself which they mean to impute to the Catholics, or a consequence which they themselves deduce from it; for these, you say, are widely different, and should never be confounded. You then prescribe the further inquiry, whether the principle (if it be principle that is attacked) has been propounded as an article of faith by the Church; and to ascertain this, you recommend, that the catechism of the

D

Council of Trent should be read; or, if the reader be not able to bestow upon that document the attentive study which it requires, you direct him to certain works of Bossuet, Mr. Gother, and Dr. Challoner. Should the doctrines with which the Romanists are charged be found, in terms or substance, in either of these works, it will then, you say, be incumbent on the Roman Catholics, either to show that the writer, in whose work it is found, was mistaken, or to admit that it is an article of faith; the Roman Catholics will then be justly chargeable with it, and with the consequences justly deducible from it. Whatever other opinions can be adduced, you add, though they be the opinions of their most respectable writers; though they be the opinions of the fathers of the Church; still they are but matters of opinion, and a Catholic may disbelieve them without ceasing to be a Catholic.

So far am I, Sir, from seeking to evade your argument, that I will enforce it by adding, in this place, the first article of the Rule of Faith taught at Maynooth College.

"The total and only Rule* of the Catholic Faith, to which all are obliged, under pain of

* Quoted in Columbanus ad Hibernos. No. 1. p. 17.